Life . . . Reframed: Hello New Zealand!

Glen's bucket list #1 - Bali - Check!
Glen's bucket list #2 - New Zealand - here we are!

The flight from Bali to Brisbane was uneventful - we slept most of the way, although it was cramped and uncomfortable. After an hour layover, we had 'premium coach' (which they were passing off as business class) from Brisbane to Auckland, so we had a much better sleep on that leg of the flight. Virgin Australia serves a hot meal to everyone on the plane - nice touch.

At Auckland airport, we picked up SIM cards for the phones, a bottle of duty-free rum and we were then picked up by Kirstin, a friend of our booking.com hosts who were away for the weekend. She had patiently waited as we stood in a ridiculously long line up to go through their customs process. The B&B was a lovely little cottage at the back of the owners property - all connected to their home via a lovely deck. We had a loft bedroom, a little living area, kitchen, bath and laundry . . . and a peekaboo view of the Auckland harbour and city lights.

Interior shot of our little cabin.

Exterior shot of the cabin - nice balcony to enjoy the sunset

Big deck and garden area off the front of the cabin. Main house
is to the right of the large jug

First order of business was to get to an Apple repair shop to get my computer fixed. The hard drive crashed about 2 weeks into our stay in Bali, and there were no spare hard drives there. We walked to the train station and took the commuter train into town - $4 each. We walked a long ways, and finally realized we'd gone way past the turnoff for the store . . . so we had a bit of a hike back up hill and finally found the shop. The machine crashed less than a month after the warranty had expired, and the fellow in the shop told me I should call Apple and see if they would cover the cost - he was pretty sure they would, as it was an expensive machine. So after about 2 hours of phone calls to Apple in Sydney (there is no official Apple store in NZ), I was told that Apple would send a new hard drive overnight to Auckland on their dime if I would pay the $200 labour cost. Apparently the total bill is around $1600, so that seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Kudos to Apple once again. On the service part . . . not the computer falling apart after 13 months part!

Lots of unusual birds and birdsong here

Since this was a Thursday afternoon, the hard drive wouldn't arrive until Monday and then there would be a day to get the work done. We didn't want to stay in Auckland that long, so decided we will carry on to the north of the island and pick up the machine on the way back through next week.

Our B&B had a bit of an issue as well - it was on the pricey side of what we are usually willing to pay, but city prices are usually more than the countryside. That's why we prefer to get out of the city quickly! We chose this one as it included breakfast, so it helped to justify the price a bit. Well, there was no breakfast food in the cottage, and the owners were away for the weekend. We asked Kirstin and she said they had run a 'special' on the cottage for a cheaper price that didn't include breakfast. Hmmm. I went back to the listing and pointed out that breakfast was advertised, and that I'd send the hosts an e-mail to sort it all out. Turns out that booking.com hadn't updated their description, but they had updated the pricing. So Kirstin brought us lots of lovely breakfast things to cook, and all was well. The internet was almost impossible to access inside the cottage, and as it had been advertised as high-speed wifi, I mentioned this in my e-mail to the hosts as well. They were so responsive and wonderful - offered us a free night for the trouble. That seemed unfair to them, so I said we'd pay half price for one night and full price for the other two nights. The place really was lovely, and we did end up getting breakfast food. The wifi was fine if we went out on the porch, and the weather was very pleasant. No harm, no foul.

Friday we took a bus out to the airport to get ourselves a car. We had booked it online . . . and that may have been a bit of a mistake, as it turns out we must return it to the Auckland airport. We had intended to take it to the south island and leave it at the Christchurch airport. However, we'll figure out a different plan - we've got lots of time. And it's really not a big deal. We spent the rest of the afternoon planning out our next week or so of travelling and AirBnBs.

Saturday morning we drove up One Tree Hill to have a look at the city of Auckland and then pointed the car northward towards our next stop - Whangarei. You can pronounce that as fong - a - rye. Don't do a hard 'g'.